Issues Related to the Validation of the Iowa Self-Assessment Inventory

This paper reports on a study which examined psychometric properties of the Iowa Self-Assessment Inventory (ISAI), an instrument designed to assess functional characteristics of the elderly across six dimensions: social resources, economic resources, mental health, physical health, activities of daily living, and cognitive status. The ISAI differs from some other multidimensional functional assessment instrument like the Duke Older Americans Resources and Services Methodology in that it is a self-report type of instrument and is convenient to complete and efficient to score. The results include acceptable reliabilities for each of the six scales and correlations between the scales and certain demographic variables which are generally consistent with expectations.